


The last great act of a broken Wingman

by Pezzythecat



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-The Unknowing (The Magnus Archives), desolation tim is still a wingman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:22:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25878862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pezzythecat/pseuds/Pezzythecat
Summary: Tim was going to die.He knew that, but listing to Martin spool his feelings on to a tape, knowing that the one person who still cared for him was being left behind hurt more than he cared to admit.He had made a promise to Martin, not long after they moved to the archives, but a twenty four expiry on his life was going to have to make him take things in to his own hands. He couldn't die with a debt.It was time to talk to Jon.This is a flashfic written for the Magnus Archives Flash Fan work Challenge prompt "Break / Connection ". Check it out at https://magnus-mailday.dreamwidth.org!
Relationships: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 22
Kudos: 86





	The last great act of a broken Wingman

**Author's Note:**

> This is a flashfic written for the Magnus Archives Flash Fanwork Challenge prompt "break /connection". Check it out at https://magnus-mailday.dreamwidth.org!

The tap clicked off.

Staring at the clock on the wall, Martin suppressed a yawn. The hour was late but sleep would not reach him tonight.

The light tap on the frame of the door made him jump.

Looking up found Tim framed in the dull halogen glow of the hallway light. The look of rage that flooded his eyes constantly seemed to have quelled since the last time he had seen the man. Martin tried to remember what it had been like to see Tim smile, his proper smile, that beam of a thing that could light up a room and persuade the coldest of hearts to thaw.

The image wasn’t there anymore, faded to black like the memory of Sasha. It was something that Martin knew had once existed but now could not recall with any clear memory.

The smiles that graced his face now were jagged and broken. His once handsome face twisted to breaking point by forces beyond comprehension and the slow, tortuous hatred that had claimed him for its own.

The man in the doorway was a long way from the happy-go-lucky flirt that had taken Martin under his wing. 

A million miles from the person who Martin had looked up to and admired, but most of all called a friend.

“You done?” Tim asked, glancing at the tape recorder.

He nodded, ejecting the tape and sliding the recorder across the table. Tim looked at it in disgust, before pushing it back across the table and holding out his hand. 

“No, the tape.”

Martin turned the tape over several times between his fingers, looking from it, to the outstretched worm scared hand before him. 

Did Tim want them to destroy them? He seemed hell bent on nothing but destruction these days

“I’m going to take them down to Jon, don’t worry.” Tim’s voice was deadpan, but there was something in the way he hovered that made Martin wonder…

“Why do-”

“I… Martin, I want to speak to him before… I want him to…” Tim ran his hands through his hair in frustration, “Martin, I know I’ve been a dick, alright? I… I was listening ok. Outside the door, I heard…” his voice trailed off.

“Tim?”

“Listen, let me… let me talk to him. One last act as wingman. One last favour before…” Tim’s voice cracked, his eyes training themselves on Martin from the other side of the desk.

Martin got to his feet maneuvering around the desk till he was level with Tim, reaching out he placed the tape in the upturned palm, hand folding Tim’s fingered around it neatly before wrapping them both tightly in his own.

“Tim, you will come back? I need you to be ok.” Martin tried to put all the emotion he could into the request as he watched Tim’s hollow and empty eyes. When had the light gotten so dim in them?

“I can’t promise that.” Tim’s voice was a wisp on the air, an echo of a thing that once was.

“But can you try? For me?” Martin wasn't stupid, he knew this was a suicide mission. Tim who had once been the brightest light was now dull and faded, brewing like a storm with only the occasional sparks of lightning breaking through to ease the darkness.

Martin tried to get Tim to hold his eye, but the man refused. Locking his own instead on their tightly bound hands. 

The hug Martin pulled him in to come easy. He tried not to think of it as a goodbye, but his heart told him that was foolish. 

Tim wasn’t coming back. He had been gone for so long now, this ghost he held in his arms was barely holding on. Hurt and rage held Tim together, and without them there was nothing left.

"I will give these to Jon." Tim whispered as he broke away. The words hung in the air. But to Martin's ears they sounded like a goodbye.

  
  


********

“You don’t deserve him, you know?” Tim watched as Jon paced the floors of his office, cigarette unlit in one hand, bracketed in place by the ever present cobweb lighter. His hair was falling out of its ponytail as he ran his free hand through it, agitated. 

There had been a time where Tim would have tried to calm the tics but now each one seemed to bring joy to him, watching Jon unravel and the monster that was hiding beneath the skin emerging gave him some sort of vicious joy. 

If it hadn’t been for Jon, he would still be in research, if it hadn’t been for Jon he wouldn’t be tied to this slaughterhouse, if it hadn’t been for Jon, Sasha would still be alive. 

He couldn’t forgive that.

Jon turned, an incomprehensible look upon his face, Tim wasn’t sure what he had expected to see. Some flicker of joy at the prospect of using his freaky monster powers to take down the unknowing? Some remorse that he was about to drag half of the archives into almost certain death?

Jon had been his friend, but that bond was now broken. 

The only person he considered a friend now was ripping himself apart two doors away in his office, as the man he loved and his only friend set themselves head first on a blind date with the apocalypse.

But Martin would be safe. 

Or as safe as he could be tied to an eldritch fear god.

At least he had that, Martin would at least not be at ground zero of the explosion that would kill them. He would be far enough away to not be ripped skin from bone by a man-made device or if failing that, skinned alive as part of a ritual. That was not Martin's destiny, although the fallout might be enough to do the same job. What would the man do when all that left is a pile of corpses?

Tim grew angry again as he watched the flame glowing at the end of Jon's fingers.

“I said-”

“I know what you said.” Jon grumbled, pausing in place, his eyes looking at the tapes in Tim’s hand. “You think I don’t know that?”

“Do you? Do you understand how much that man will sacrifice? For a monster?”

To his credit Jon looked ashamed at the words, casting his eyes to the floor and taking a step back, Tim filled the space moving towards the desk placing the tapes over the largest of the teacup stains and what looked suspiciously like burn marks. His eyes drew out the patterns on the wood before looking up to the expectant face of Jon.

“You wanted statements for your archives, so there you go. Mine and Martins. Eat your creepy little monster heart out.” He spat, though the venom wasn’t as deadly as normal, his rage now directed elsewhere.

“I thought Martin would be the one…” Jon looked crestfallen, his shoulders hunched in on himself somehow looking smaller than normal.

“He was, but I stopped him.” Tim tried not to let the anger overcome him, he owed at least this to Martin, it might not be a happy ending but it was the swan song of a condemned man, “I heard him recording, I heard the words that man can’t say, listen to him. He deserves you to do at least that.”

Jon looked lost.

So lost, that for a moment it took Tim back to the first weeks in the Archives when Jon was hopelessly in over his head and all he wanted to do was throw out a hand to stop him from drowning.

_ Martin, you're doing this for Martin. _ the voice in his head repeated, Jon had burned his bridges when he let Sasha die.

“Tim...I’m so sorry ..”

“Don’t do that… don’t think you can get in my head… Know things.” the rage bled out in the words “We can’t fix this. Us. This whole damn thing is so messed up I doubt we could salvage anything, but Martin? I can still make good on that. Talk to him, tell him the things I couldn’t tell Sasha, don’t leave it on maybe.”

“Tim, I don’t-” Jon started before Tim cut him off

“Don’t what? Tell me Jon, when it comes to Martin, what is it you don’t? Because I saw the change in you when we decided he would stay behind, I see the way you are with him, I see the looks and the missed moments, I see you Jon.” The anger was begging to rise in him again but he tamed it, pushed it back to the base of his chest and wrapped it around what little of his heart he had left now that all the pieces had been scattered as they broke away. He would need it tomorrow, he would need it to make sure when the time comes he could pull the trigger.

Jon gaped at him now, slack jawed and slumped against the desk. “I don’t know what to say to him.”

“Listen to the tape. That's what you do. Listen to statements and summarise them, right? Wasn't it you who said you didn't want to become a mystery?”

Jon held his gaze. Before Tim stood a broken man, Tim wanted to call him a monster but right now he looked small and scared and the hatred that he felt towards him waned at the edges. 

Jon was scared. Something that Tim was finding it increasingly hard to be. The fear had left him; he had nothing left to fear. Giving his life for his own revenge by way of saving the world seemed like the natural conclusion for a man with nothing left to lose.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Martin… the tapes… why are you doing this?"

Tim turned to the open door, his face tucked away from Jon, he didn’t know why he was doing this, it felt like he was trying to tie up all the loose strings in his life, he didn’t want to die owing Martin a debt. Jon however didn’t deserve to know this, this was for him not some all seeing eye. 

"I'll see you in the morning,"

As he headed back to his own office he could feel the last of the bricks falling from the bridge of their friendship into the abyss he couldn’t forgive Jon, but if everything went to plan tomorrow he wouldn't have to.

  
  
  
  
  
  


*********

_ “Oh, and I hope the world doesn’t end. Obviously. Just… just don’t die, Jon. Or, or Tim, Basira, or… Daisy, I guess? Just… can everyone please make it back home?” _

Martin's voice echoed around his chest and wrapped his heart in their tendrils.

The words picked apart and lay bare the underlying fear he had been trying so hard to ignore.

He traced the lines in the wood of Martin's door with a delicate hand before bringing it up to rap sharply on the glass.

When Martin didn't answer Jon took it upon himself to open the door and let himself in.

Martin sat at his desk, heels of his hands pressed tight against his eyes, his face blotches of red visible behind splayed hands. Jon's heart lurched, dragging him forwards and towards the hurt he wanted so badly to stop. He wished he could pick Martin up and take him away from all this, but he was just as trapped as any of them.

"Go away Tim." Martin grumbled from behind his fingers, not looking up to see who had joined him.

"Martin?" Jon watched as Martin’s head whipped up, eyes wide behind crooked glasses, bright green and rimmed in red from where the man had obviously been crying.

"Jon? I thought you were Tim." Martin blushed. 

"Yes, I gathered that."

Martin ducked his head behind his hands as he straightened his glasses, Jon looked away to give the other man a moment to compose himself. After a few moments, Martin broke the silence.

"Did Tim not give you the tapes? I knew I should have-"

"-no he gave me them, I…" Jon trailed off, unsure where that vocalised thought had been headed. Why had he come? It had seemed such a good idea when his heart had been thinking of its own accord. Now Martin stood before him. His mind supplied a litany of reasons why this was an idiotic idea. Number one being he was most likely going to die in less than twenty-four hours. 

He was a dead man walking and a monster to boot, Tim was right, no matter what Jon wanted, Martin deserved better. But that wasn’t his decision to make, it was Martin’s. Between the entities and being bound to the institute, choice was not something they had much of these days, but this?

"Jon?" Martin had gotten to his feet now, moving around the desk to join Jon in the small space between the door and the visitor’s chair. Reaching around Jon, he pushed the door to his office closed.

Jon froze. 

The air hitched in his chest, his heart an uneven racing beat triggered by the sudden closeness. 

His mind and vision suddenly full of Martin, and now he wonders why it has taken him so long to get to this point, how he had traversed the office for months if not years with this beast raging in his chest. All the time spent in isolation at the circus had made him realise that Martin was never far from his mind, more so when his body and mind were at the stress point of breaking, that image of Martin kept him from giving up, gave him something to fight for.

“Jon? Are you alright?” A tentative hand on his shoulder carried the weight of the world. Grounding him and pulling him into the present and the closeness of the man who had somehow stuck by him through everything that Elias had found to throw at him.

“I just wanted... That is to say…” he began unsure as to the correct way to word his feelings.

They burned, words fighting to be released into the air, tumbling over themselves and compounding themselves into nonsense and balderdash.

He needed the words to Just Be Right, anything to ease the crippling pain in his chest when he thought this may be the last time he saw the man before him. “Tim… he came to see me.” his mind settled on.

“Oh...” Martin’s grip lessened on his shoulder and Jon reached up to grasp at the retreating hand, chasing after the touch that he hadn’t until this moment realised he craved almost as much as air. His hand came to rest cupping Martin’s wrist where it stalled, hand hovering just above the curve of Jon’s shoulder.

The air hung heavy between them, Jon not quite able to reach Martin’s gaze.

Time seemed to have stopped as every nerve in Jon’s body focused on the warmth of Martin’s skin under his own. Martin’s pulse raced under his fingers, reassuring in its rapid spike when Jon looked up and finally made eye contact.

This close Martin’s eyes looked more puffy, the red around them fading into the dark circles that Jon realised echoed his own. Was recording the statements having the same effect on Martin as it did Jon? Was Martin becoming a monster?

An anger grew inside him at that thought, Elias didn’t get to have that, Martin was not some toy to be played with.

As if understanding the unsaid request Martin dropped his hand back on to the fading red fabric that covered Jon’s arms, the oversized hoodie that he had stolen, once Martin’s but now firmly in the category of ‘Mine’ in his head, how long had he been living in this semi reality, how long had they been tangled in this dance unsure on who was supposed to take the lead.

“I brought my lighter,” he said, eventually. Fishing it from his pocket and holding it out into the tiny space between the two of them. “Figured you would need it more than me, you know ... for the arson.”

“Setting fire to things can be therapeutic.” Martin joked as he wrapped his hand around the thing and slid it in his own back pocket. “Cathartic,” he smiled, but he didn’t step back, keeping Jon bracketed in between him and the door .The hand that rested on Jon’s shoulder moving to play with the toggles of the hoodie that hung loosely around Jon’s shoulders. “I’ll be wanting this back in one piece, mind, no blowing it up.”

“Me or the hoodie?”

“Both.”

Oh, and wasn’t that a loaded statement, why were the two of them so incapable of expressing these things to each other, they were apparently an open book to everyone else? 

He wanted to lean in. The gap between the two of them wasn’t that large, not here in the tiny office that Martin avoided at all costs. Normally opting for the open plan workspace of the archives themselves. Yet right now it was as if Martin had always belonged to this office, to the archives… to him. He would stay if he asked… how he wanted Martin to ask.

“I can leave it behind-” he wasn’t sure if he ment himself or the jacket.

“-you wouldn't do that. I know you, Jon.” Yet Martin had known he ment him all along.

He turned his face to look up at Martin who’s entire body now lent itself to him, his dark hair curling into his eyes where it desperately needed cutting. How long ago was it since he had last gone to the barbers? Grown out of the copy cat cuts that he and Tim had gotten, it was long enough now that soon he would need to be raiding Jon’s desk for a hair bobble. But it looked soft, like everything about Martin, it looked inviting, like they created it just for him to have and to hold. 

He wanted to hold him; he wanted to come back to him, he couldn’t leave him to the mercy of Elias.

He had to hope that the office gossip, and the glances caught from the corner of his eye late at night, were interpreted by his mind correctly. He had never been much good at reading people. And reading emotions was even lower on the list of things he was accomplished at.

“The tape, you said-”

“You listened already?” Martin’s eyes were wide now. The red from the tears now starting to fade behind the flush that began high upon his cheeks.

“Tim, made me? I suppose he told me I had too… well, he told me a lot of things.” as Martin moved to pull his hand away Jon stopped him, turning to press his face against the now stilled fingers. “I can’t promise I won’t die… but I don’t want to leave myself a mystery.”

Martin broke the gaze, stepping away and scanning every surface, as Jon stood watching, exposed and hurt at this turn of events. Why were words so hard? What had he said? Had he read the whole thing wrong? He needed to know. He began following Martin around the too small office as he pulled out draws and looked behind long dead pot plants.

“Martin? What are you doing?”

“Checking for tape recorders.” he dead panned as he stopped short, Jon crashed into the back of him, his broad shoulders suddenly in Jon’s face like a solid wall of muscle and vanilla laundry soap. He wobbled but before he fell, Martin grabbed him, whipping around to take hold before he toppled over the waste bin.

“Sorry….” Martin flustered as he helped Jon right himself, his hand wrapped tightly around Jon’s waist was almost too much for Jon to bare, it had been a long time since someone held him, the feel of Martin’s palm on the small of his back was burning at the point of connection, every part of Jon’s heart yearned for more. He wrapped his hand tighter into the yellow plaid shirt that fit Martin so well, his other hand resting over Martin’s heart where he could feel the thing speeding up under his palm.

“Why look for recorders?” Jon spat out. He had to calm his mind, he needed to do this properly, he had to find the words, yet the words he wanted to say lost now, disintegrated under something as simple as-

“Whenever you say, I don’t want to be a mystery… recorders turn up and we end up on the receiving end of almost certain death. You can understand why I would be a little on the weary side.” Martin doesn’t move away, he does the opposite and Jon finds he doesn’t resist when Martin’s hand moves on his back, pinky finger coasting across the now exposed skin at the base of his spine where his shirt had rucked up in Martin’s smoothe rescue from tumbling disaster.

“Your assumptions are wrong this time, sorry to disappoint you, the only monster here is me.”

“You can’t disappoint me Jon.” and oh how he wanted to believe him.

“But I am a monster?”

“You're a horrible brat and a drama queen, dunno about a monster.” Martin’s free hand reached out to push the now loose hair out of his face, at some point his hair had fallen free from its ponytail and now hung around his vision, blocking the rest of the room from him, everything was just Martin. Sight, sound, smell, would he taste like tea? Jon had often wondered. Martin gazed at him now, fingers resting by his temple, Jon now no longer sure if the rapid pulse was his or Martin’s under his fingers. 

“Not a monster. But you are a mystery.”

“I don’t want to be.” Jon’s fingers tightened over Martin’s heart gathering the material as he pulled him closer, this close he could see the small brown freckle and hazel flecks in Martin’s eyes, trace the curve of his nose down to the cupids bow that flowed on to the slightly parted lips that grabbed his attention and would not let go. With one tug he pulled Martin down to him, needing to know if he tasted of the earl grey he constantly drank, needing to catalogue that part of Martin in the safest part of his heart, where the eye could not touch him.

The small ‘Oh’ from Martin, lost as they collided, lip to lip, chest to chest made his heart race.

The grip on the small of his back intensified, drawing him closer as the taller man pulled him into himself, as if it scared him to let go.

Jon felt the same, this was like something from a dream, only Jon’s dreams didn’t get to have happy endings, not these days. 

Breaking the kiss, Martin tilted his head up by the chin so he could look at Jon. He positively beamed, Jon didn’t think he could fall for the man harder, but here he was falling all over again, but at least this time Jon had a name for the feeling that churned in his stomach and filled his heart. Martin was smiling at him, so open and honest, without that downtrodden undertone that made Jon wish he had done this so much sooner, if only to see Martin smile at him like he was the universe.

“Drama queen?” Jon muttered when his mind had caught up with what was unfolding around him, 

“Bit of a drama queen, yes.” Martin pressed their heads together, “I don’t want to be a mystery is pretty dramatic stuff, couldn’t just ask me out on a date like a normal person?”

Jon laughed, and it shocked him. It had been so long since he had laughed; he was sure he had forgotten how. “Oh, and when were we supposed to fit that in? Between the kidnappings? A quick nip down to Bella Italia in between police investigations for murder?”

Martin nudged him with his nose, knocking his glasses askew. Jon reached out un afraid now to straighten them like he had been so many times before. “I mean lets not forget when I thought you were out to kill me. That seems like the perfect time to ask someone out on a-”

Martin surged forward, capturing his lips again, a chaste peck but enough to send Jon’s mind reeling, Martin chuckled against his lips. “If I’d realised that was all I had to do to cut off one of your rants, I should have utilised it ages ago,” 

“They are not rants Martin,” he huffed just to make Martin puff out another laugh into the air between them, melting into arms that were just as sturdy as Jon had always imagined them to be, he wanted to stay here. The unknowing could happen as long as he had Martin. 

“It’s a rant, Jon.” Martin pulled him into him, Jon melted into it. Mapping every point of contact until he was sure that it would live in his mind, ready for him to recall when he needed it most, when he had to remember he had something to live for. 

The knock on the door was an afterthought, buried somewhere in the background noise of the institute. It wasn’t until Tim banged his hand on the desk did they look up. Jon glanced at Martin, his eyes were red again. The trail of tears clear on his cheeks. 

“You two good?” Tim grumbled, but the heat wasn’t as strong now when he spat out the words. 

“Is it time?” 

“Yup, Daisy has the car pulled up out front, I’ll let you… whatever.” he gestured at the two of them, Martin still had his hand twisted in the bottom of Jon’s shirt and Jon clung to Martin like a lifeline, something that was almost a smile hinted on Tim’s face before flickering out. “I’ll be downstairs. Don’t make me have to come back” Martin made to move towards Tim but it was too late, he had disappeared into the archives without a second look. 

A frustrated growl followed by a strangled sob came from Martin as he turned back to Jon with a frustrated look in his eyes. “Don’t die, either of you.” he warned, reaching up to wipe away the tears that Jon hadn’t even realised were running down his own face. 

He had to say something, but he didn’t know what, he had always turned to Georgie and the Admiral for comfort, and rarely was he the one that people looked to for the thing.

“Do you like Hungarian food?” He blurted out, unsure how or where his mind had dug the idea from “When we get back, a place opened, close to here, it comes highly recommended, we should go-”

“Like on a date?”

“Yes, when I get back.” Jon tried to sound confident when he spoke, but his voice betrayed him. For the first time, he wanted a future. He needed to get back to Martin.

“I think I would like that.” Martin said pulling Jon in with gentle hands and placing a slow deliberate kiss on his lips, sealing the deal. Martin gently reached out, zipping up the hoodie and pushing Jon towards the door. He could tell the man was trying to compose himself, the dead set look of determination etched upon his face. Jon was finding it increasingly hard to leave. He wanted to stay, to stay here with Martin and pretend the world wasn’t about to meet an unsavory end at the hands of a deranged circus. 

He had to tell him he had to know…

“Martin, I lo-” Martin silenced him with a kiss, then a gentle push out his office door.

“Go save the world, I'm not going anywhere,” was the last thing Martin said to him, before everything went horribly wrong.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading ! kudos makes me happy, Comments make me write more and maybe even make me work on the W.I.P that stare at me with angry eyes from my documents folder... I'm sure they are trying to break containment and get there own book plates.  
> x pezzy


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